Positive thinking is a way of manipulating your own thinking to eliminate counterproductive thoughts and attitudes and replace them with productive, positive thoughts. This can result in both physical and psychological benefits over time. If you apply it appropriately, it can also result in a great enhancement of the quality of your relationship.
History
The term "positive thinking" first entered the popular lexicon in 1952 with Norman Vincent Peale's book, "The Power of Positive Thinking." Its basic premise is that most human unhappiness arises from unproductive thinking patterns. Your task as an aspiring positive thinker is to develop a moment-by-moment awareness of your thinking patterns, identify negative thinking patterns and replace them with positive thinking. Thinking patterns include not only verbal thinking patterns, but also images as well.
Method
The first step in positive thinking is to make a habit of asking yourself "What am I thinking right now?" at various points during the day until your "meta-awareness" of your own thinking becomes second nature to you. Step two is to learn about negative thinking patterns such as the ones identified by the Mayo Clinic--filtering, catastrophizing, polarizing and personalizing--and be able to identify them immediately whenever you find yourself using them. The final step is to create new, positive thinking patterns to replace negative ones and to intervene in your own thinking patterns to replace the negative with the positive. At more advanced levels, you can use techniques such as creative visualization to change your mental imagery.
Idealization
Once you have become proficient in positive thinking, you can begin to apply it to your relationship. One of the techniques that has been found to work is idealization of your partner. Sandra Murray, a psychologist at the University at Buffalo, found that happy couples tend to have higher opinions of each other than each one does of themselves. To a limited degree, giving your partner more credit for positive character traits than he feels he deserves will improve your relationship, at least if your partner returns the favor.
Investing in Yourself
Susan Biali, wellness coach and author of "Your Prescription for Life," advises people experiencing relationship difficulties to concentrate on taking care of themselves--but not at the expense of their partners. Join a gym, take a guitar class, quit drinking or perform some other act of loving care toward yourself. This will make you less emotionally dependent on the relationship, removing pressure from both you and your partner.
Forgiveness
Everyone has shortcomings, which means everyone needs forgiveness at some point or another. Be liberal with your forgiveness of your partner. One way to do this is to catalog your partner's virtues and think of them whenever your partner wrongs or angers you in some way. As long as your partner's virtues outweigh his shortcomings, forgiveness will come much easier when you put matters in perspective in this way. It may also encourage your partner to extend the same tolerance to your shortcomings.
Member Comments